Success stories
How Hartford, CT Took Their City Hall Completely Digital
Hartford was founded in 1635 and is among the oldest cities in the US. The state of Connecticut has no county-level executive or legislative government, therefore municipalities like Hartford provide nearly all local services such as fire and rescue, education, and snow removal. Hartford passed an ordinance in 2008, committing to provide services to all residents regardless of immigration status.
SITUATION
As Mayor Luke Bronin looked to his second term with the City of Hartford, CT, he wanted to rethink the City’s approach to reaching, informing, engaging, and serving its residents.
To do that, the mayor kicked off a redesign of the City’s website, leveraging a user-centered and human data-driven approach to reimagine how the City’s website could be a better reflection of a Digital City Hall.
SOLUTION
Working with Granicus, Mayor Bronin and his team found that most residents came to the City’s website trying to get something done or complete a transaction, which in many cases could not be done online. At the same time, requests for public records were growing exponentially.
Given the City’s commitment to making it easier for residents to do things online, the Mayor knew that driving transparency, being compliant, and providing timely public records was a key part of providing better digital services. The City focused on addressing those combined needs for their new-and-improved website, ensuring that residents could complete simple but important tasks from the comfort and safety of their homes and mobile devices.
RESULTS
Within a year, the City was able to launch its new website with over 100 online forms, converting PDFs to digital services and rebuilding their permitting process to make it easier for businesses and residents to interact with the City. As of today, the City has created and utilized over 200 forms, with more than 24,000 submissions from building permit applications to COVID-19 vaccine forms to ‘Contact the Mayor’ suggestions. And by investing in Granicus’s public records request software, the City was also able to transform and streamline how residents engaged in public records requests.
The new combined digital solution platform is serving and engaging the Hartford community far more effectively and efficiently.
“The Granicus team was a tremendous and collaborative partner as we worked to redesign our digital services and offer a true digital City Hall,” said Mayor Bronin. “I’m grateful that we had a partner that understood how important it is to start by listening closely and carefully to the residents, the service users, and our City team.”
